


Why I think the character of Prince Wrathion from World of Warcraft could be considered Autistic, and what that would mean for his story

by OtterMcKilbourne (p_3a)



Category: World of Warcraft
Genre: Essays, Gen, Meta, Neurodiversity
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-05-02
Updated: 2014-05-02
Packaged: 2018-01-21 16:43:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,881
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1557185
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/p_3a/pseuds/OtterMcKilbourne
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Hello, I am an Autistic person, and I also have some other learning disabilities and mental illnesses. I’m here to give you a literal, actual essay on why I think the character of Prince Wrathion from World of Warcraft could be considered autistic too, and what that means for his story.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Why I think the character of Prince Wrathion from World of Warcraft could be considered Autistic, and what that would mean for his story

**Author's Note:**

> Mention/discussion of the following: self harm, ableism, parental abuse, caregiver abuse, gaslighting, murder
> 
> Also: both War Crimes and Warlords speculation, although the section containing this is clearly marked.

**—- 1 / Signs and Symptoms**

Many of the typical symptoms of autism are seen in Wrathion’s emotional and physical responses to the world around him, as well as his own self-initiated behaviour. Despite being a dragon, he was raised for the first year or so of his life by mortals, who themselves were extremely savvy when it came to deceiving and understanding the motivations of other mortals. So, I believe that socialisation is not a factor - his behaviour is more indicative of his neurotype than of his species, and would be considered unusual even among other dragons.

The first, and maybe most obvious, is his emotional non seqitur when presented with things that should be disturbing or upsetting, and, related, his unusual body language. He’d described as grinning when listening to the player’s tale of vicious cross-faction fighting, and his adulation of Lei Shen’s power and cleverness is at odds with the morals of what his rule did to Pandaria. He displays an unusual response to pain; he either doesn’t seem to react to it, as seen when he hurts himself for the player, or he seems more irritated and angry than hurt or upset, as seen in the trials of Yu’lon/Xuen. He is capable of displaying plain negative emotions - he seems frightened when speaking with Chi Ji - but he doesn’t always get it right. The fact that he’s acting atypically is further evidenced by the fact he’s described as “creepy” by his close associate (Zazzo Twinklefingers in the rogue questchain) - this means that his behaviour is considered unusual even in-universe, and even by what he’d probably call his friends.

Despite having many associates, he doesn’t really seem to have very many friends, which is also an almost stereotypical factor which occurs in some autistic people. His interpersonal skills are quite weak, and he seems to prefer keeping people at a distance - Fahrad remains his man-servant despite Wrathion admitting to being indebted to him. He keeps a completely business-like relationship with Tong, despite spending the better part of a year living with him. He seems unsure how to react when Chi Ji shows him sympathy, and he’s surprisingly shaky when asking the rogue player at the end of the legendary chain if they’ll be on the same side when they see each other again. The person he seems to interact with most fluently is Anduin Wrynn, but they still have several communication breakdowns during their scenes together; it seems most of their connection is testament to Anduin’s social skills, and not Wrathion’s.

Next is his favouring rules and strict plans, despite his idealogical emphasis on personal freedom. This is a defining characteristic of autism; usually one of the first things that makes me wonder if someone else is autistic is if they get badly upset when their plans are disrupted. Wrathion always knows the next thing he wants, and is always ready to tell the player exactly what’s going to happen next. He gets confused and upset when people go against their set roles, even if it’s for good reason - as evidenced by his reaction to Tong’s advice. And, of course, the most famous example - he gets grievously upset when his plans fall out of place for the first time, to the point of having what’s been called in the fandom as a temper tantrum, but I think looks more like a meltdown.

Let’s talk about the temper tantrum. To me, it seems that he’s upset by the disruption to his routine, and by own failure to incorporate other people’s behaviours into his plans. He’s aware of his own shortcomings in not properly predicting how Varian Wrynn would react at the end of the siege (more evidence of his low interpersonal skills), and he feels overwhelmed by his failure and the knock-on effect it’ll have on the rest of his plans (he dialogue reveals he’d planned for things at least a year in advance). So he self-soothes and blows off his emotions by breathing fire - in and of itself no doubt an intense sensory experience - and smashing things, which is also a method of self-soothing.

In fact, he seems to be quite sensory seeking in general. He’s fascinated by the view at Mason’s Folly, which is bright and busy; he seems not to mind strong physical sensations such as handling the Lightning Lance, and using blood magic (which intrinsically requires self-harm). Even sensing his fellow Black Dragons in the rogue legendary quest chain was no doubt an intense experience, and he didn’t seem to mind it at all. I’d be willing to put this down to his species if other dragons showed similar fascinations with sensory experiences, but they don’t. Maybe it’s his age, but given the other factors, I’m willing to say it’s his neurotype.

**—- 2 / Narrative Trajectory**

The most important part of Wrathion’s narrative trajectory in terms of whether he’s autistic or not is his relationship to the Red Dragonflight. The Red Dragonflight were responsible for his creation - the dragon Rheastrasza, on commission of Alexstrasza, was investigating ways to purify the Black Dragonflight of N’zoth’s influence, and Wrathion was the result.

I would argue, in fact, that this storyline is representative of a story which belongs, in the real world, almost exclusively to developmentally disabled people, and therefore that it’s unpleasant at best to write a storyline of this type occuring to a completely neurotypical character.

The exact part of the storyline I’m referring to here is what happens after Rheastrasza’s death, when Wrathion’s egg is taken to the Vermilleon Redoubt and taken care of by the Red Dragonflight. From there, it’s kidnapped by Ravenholdt agents and taken to the basement of Ravenholdt Manor. In the rogue legendary chain, the player is tasked by Corastrasza and Mostrasz to retrieve the egg from Ravenholdt and take it back to the safety of the Redoubt.

However, once you get into the basement, it becomes clear that Wrathion’s egg has already hatched, and he gives you a speech about how he doesn’t want to go back. He tells you that he’s heard the scheming of the Red Dragonflight, and that he doesn’t want to be a trophy on their mantlepiece. It’s clear that, from Wrathion’s perspective, the Red Dragonflight - because they’d created him - were considering him a possession of theirs, some pet project that they could do what they wanted with. Even after Wrathion voices his opinion that he sees his place at the Vermilleon Redoubt as a prison, Mostrasz claims they only want to protect him from Deathwing’s minions. Wrathion says he’s perfectly capable of taking care of himself, then dismisses the Red dragon - although not without airily ordering his legs broken.

How does this relate to developmentally disabled people in the real world? One of the common problems that developmentally disabled people can encounter with their parents is that their parents think they’re entitled to decide how they ought to spend their lives, no matter what. It’s common for non-verbal autistic people to overhear their parents talking about (often harmful) treatments and therapies that they don’t want to go through, much as Wrathion overheard the plotting of the Red Dragonflight, and for them to decide they don’t want to do it. Much as the Red Dragonflight presumed Wrathion incompetent and behaved as though he couldn’t hear them, parents will talk in front of their disabled children as though they can’t hear them, assuming they’re too disabled to be able to understand.

The Red Dragonflight made the mistake of assuming Wrathion had been taken away from them, not that he’d reached out and asked for rescue. So their rescue attempt, while well-meaning, ultimately came off as an abduction attempt - and they’d roped an otherwise innocent person in to help them. This sometimes happens when disabled people escape abusive caregivers; the caregiver will paint it as their having gotten lost, and onlookers will help them find the disabled person and bring them home (back into the abusive environment).

The next relevant part of Wrathion’s plot with the Red Dragonflight occurs at the end of the quest chain. Not content with having tried to kidnap him once, the Red Dragonflight then assaults Ravenholdt outright, trying to kill Wrathion off altogether. The murder of autistic children at the hands of their caregivers is shockingly common and often painted by the media as euthanasia or “done out of desperation”. Often, it’ll happen after the autistic child started disobeying the caregiver, going against their wishes and ignoring their commands. The Red Dragonflight made the same decision - if Wrathion was going to be difficult, if he wasn’t going to behave for them and be their perfect prisoner, then he’d be better off dead.

I hope you can see how this story is something that is pretty unique, in the real world, to disabled people. The reason why it’s important that it’s a story which usually happens to disabled people is that when it takes place in fictional worlds, it’s a little strange when it happens to characters who aren’t disabled in some way. Such erasure gives off the impression that disabled people somehow aren’t good enough to be at the centre of their own stories - that they’re not relatable enough or compelling enough to be portrayed, even when their stories apparently are.

Given Wrathion’s emotional and physical behaviour, I don’t think it’s outside the realm of possibility for him to be autistic; and given this story in his background, I think it’s better to consider him autistic than to consider him completely neurotypical. It gives autistic people our proper place in our own stories; not to mention, it gives us a popular character in a large franchise that we can relate to as one of our own.

**—- 3 / Going Forwards // WAR CRIMES & WARLORDS SPECULATION**

I am concerned about where Blizzard are taking this character in Warlords. I’m worried they’re going to write him doing some awful, irredeemable things, and that he’s going to begin to be interpreted as Evil-aligned by the majority of the player base. Besides being at odds with the meta reasons for Wrathion’s creation (Blizzard wanting the Black Dragonflight to return without them being evil), this also has some negative impact when considering the above outlined points. Many franchises have their only mentally disabled or mentally ill characters as the villains, and it perpetuates the stereotype that mentally disabled and mentally ill people are violent towards others; when in reality, we’re much more likely to be the victims of violent crimes than the other way around.

I’m worried that Blizzard don’t realise that they’ve essentially written an autistic character already, and that they’re going to go forwards with his story without bearing his present implications in mind. That’s not even getting into the fact that he’s the only visible character of colour on their main roster so far, which has its own nasty implications if they decide to turn him evil or show him performing unarguably evil acts.

I hope that if he is shown to perform evil acts, that he’s shown to be performing them because he’s truly unaware of their implications or because he’s been manipulated into them by older and more aware creatures than himself. And I hope that, however he’s written in future, that the fandom isn’t awful about it.

**Author's Note:**

> I hope I’ve given you something to think about, even if you still don’t agree. If you’re neurotypical, please remember to consider your own biases and uneducation on the topic before you comment, because even if you’ve studied autism and similar disabilities, you can never know what it’s like to experience first-hand and to see your neurotype so often misportrayed in the media. Even still, I’m just one Autistic person with one point of view; I hope you found it interesting to read. Thank you.


End file.
